Then you'll find plenty to like in this Third World hideaway specializing in the namesake soup that's a staple of Vietnamese cuisine. The menu lists 15 different varieties -- huge, steaming bowls of broth chock-full of rice noodles, a variety of cuts of beef, bean sprouts, serrano chile, lime and fresh herbs.

Move beyond soup and sample chao gio (spring rolls packed with ground pork, rice vermicelli and mushrooms), mi xao (egg noodles) or tom va bo nuong vi (a wraplike beef, shrimp and veggie dish you cook yourself on a tabletop griddle). Other authentic options include a variety of hot pots, chicken with lemongrass and marinated shrimp with raw vegetables. To wash it down, order from the long list of Asian beers.

If you can tear your eyes off your chopsticks long enough, you just might see presidential woulda-been John McCain. According to a blurb on the menu, Pho Bang is his favorite Vietnamese eatery -- and who should know better than a former POW who spent years savoring the native fare?

Don't expect to find any piatas, colorful serapes or beer-touting sombreros here. This reproduction of a 19th-century Mexican ranch house is impeccably tasteful, down to the last carved, dark wood chair, white linen tablecloth and soaring silk flower arrangement.

But the lavish decor is just visual garnish for the most upscale Mexican food the Valley has to offer. Chips? No way, José! Instead, opt for high-end appetizers, like pasteles de jaiba (plantain-crusted crab cakes with chipotle oil) or tamal de pato (braised duckling tamale with orange honey masa and tomato nixtamal sauce). And don't even think of combo plates with entrees such as cochinillo asado (spit-roasted suckling pig stuffed with chorizo) and mero al sartén (pan-seared grouper with grilled cucumber pico and veracruzana sauce).

Don't be fooled. This food may sound like Taco Bell, but it tastes authentic. Everything is made fresh in the restaurant's open kitchen, and owner Carmen Tafoya isn't shy about sneaking in the spices where appropriate -- her red chile beef packs a mean left hook. The tanker-size tamales are fluffy; the chicken green corn positively floats off the plate, studded with lots of fresh kernels, peppery white-meat chicken and cheese under green chile sauce.

We're not morning people. We admit it. If God had meant for people to be awake in the morning, he wouldn't have had to create alarm clocks.

There's little that can convince us to leave our warm bed at the crack of dawn (has anyone else noticed that a mattress never fits so perfectly as it does just before we're forced to leave it?).

Good chorizo is one of those things, though, that rouses our head from the pillow, summons us to our slippers, and gets us to greet the day with a smile.

That's a pretty big accomplishment for just $4.50, but La Cabana pulls it off with its huevos con chorizo meal (to be accurate, the dish should read chorizo con huevos, such is the generous ratio of highly spiced chile-vinegar-garlic sausage to egg). The sausage is a wonderful jump-start to the day -- dry, salty, smoky -- and only gets better when we fold it into a corn tortilla spread with gorgeously runny refried beans.

Sometimes we mix it up, adding thin guacamole from the on-ice salsa bar, alternating munches with bites of cool lettuce, radish, and cucumber drizzled with lime. A cold horchata drink is just the thing, too, tasting comfortingly like wet tapioca and soothing some of the chorizo burn.

The only problem? After finishing the plate, we're so stuffed, we want to go right back to bed.

While other places may fry their fish in batter and pile on the sauces and cheese, chef-owner Rita Aramburo leaves the Mrs. Paul's approach to seafood tacos to others.

The catfish here is remarkably flavorful, sautéed in chunks with tomato, onion and a touch of seasoning. The vegetables are soft, warm, and cooked down so their juices blend with the firm fish -- so savory, and much better than the cold veggie chop we find in other tacos around town.

The uncomplicated mix is wrapped in a grilled corn tortilla, with nothing more to add than a squeeze of lemon and a splash of Rita's killer spicy salsa.

Sure, we could tell you that the seafood cocktails here are so fresh that you'll swear you can hear sea gulls overhead.

Or that the Sea of Cortez cookery (try the garlic shrimp with rice and beans) is so authentic that you'll actually think you can smell the salty ocean air.

Or that a visit to San Carlos Seafood is so enjoyable that you'll believe you've been magically transported to a cantina on a south-of-the-border shore.

Instead, we'd just like to steer you to the most delicious Mexican-style seafood the Valley has to offer, served up in a no-frills joint on a seedy stretch of East McDowell. But if you want to pretend that freeway overpass right down the road is an Aztec temple, be our guest. As for us, we'll have another ceviche tostada.